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Over the next 18 months, 拢50 m in grants will be made available to help fund the installation of photovoltaics, solar hot water panels, micro wind turbines, biomass and ground source heat pumps.

The Renewable Energy Association gave it a cautious welcome. Graham Meaks, head of fuels and heat for the organisation, commented: 鈥淭his new programme gives public sector organisations a real opportunity to 鈥榞o green鈥�.

With many schools set to benefit, we hope it will have a valuable impact in putting renewableenergy at the heart of our communities.鈥�

He added: 鈥淲hat sort of longer-term impact the Programme will have on the wider micro-renewables market remains to be seen. We are still extremely concerned about the limited and short-term approach of the government鈥檚 capital grant policy鈥�

At the launch of the scheme, Alistair Darling secretary of state for Trade and Industry said. 鈥淐ombining energy efficiency measures with the fitting of micro generation technologies on schools and other public sector buildings can and will make a real difference.鈥�

He also added that the selling of any electricity produced by such technologies back to the national grid is another benefit of having them installed and the scrapping of income tax on re-sales announced in the Pre-Budget Report is a real incentive to increasing local level energy production.

As part of the Programme Solar Century and its partner Scottish and Southern Energy have been appointed by the DTI to supply and install photovoltaic panels.